Developer Sony Santa Monica has shared that Kratos will act a bit more humane in their upcoming prequel God of War: Ascension.

The soon-to-be bloodthirsty god of war hasn’t yet faced that tragic downward spiral that transforms him into the monster we play as in later games, and lead designer Mark Simon hopes to convey that in this prequel.

In an interview with The Verge, Simon explained how they plan to do this by providing an example of how Kratos might react in the game. “For example, there’s the guy who’s against the wall, and there’s a fire, and in order to get past him Kratos just kills him and moves on. I think what the Kratos in this game would do is, he would try to move around the guy,” he said.

“He wouldn’t try to kill him to move on. He’s not going to go massively out of his way or anything like that, he is very driven to do what he does — the guy is a Spartan general, he’s killed hundreds and hundreds of people,” Simon added, emphasizing the fact that “he doesn’t kill any civilian, here. The ones that are killing the civilians are the beasts that he’s fighting against.”

Simon believes that by pitting Kratos against the horrible beasts that are harming innocent civilians, Kratos will appear to be more of a hero rather than a monster. “Kratos is going to go in and fight those guys, so in a way he’s more heroic for doing things like this. When the Juggernaut shows up, he kills three guys just like that, and Kratos runs in and fights this guy. That’s the monster, in this game, not Kratos.”

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